Civic Humanism, Modernity and Ideology

11 January 2007

The paper
revisits the question of the modernity of the Renaissance by examining the
political language of Florentine civic humanism and by critically analyzing the
debate over Hans Baronís interpretation of the movement. It engages two debates
that are usually conducted separately: one concerning the originality of civic
humanism in comparison to medieval thought; and the other concerning the
political and social function of the civic humanistsí political republicanism
in fifteenth-century Florence.
My main contention is that humanist political discourse divorced the perception
of reality from the metaphysical and divine order of things, and thus
undermined the traditional justifications for political hierarchies and power
relations. This created the conditions of possibility for the distinctively
modern aspiration for a social and political order based on liberty and
equality. It also resulted in the birth of a distinctively modern form of
ideology, one that legitimizes the social order by disguising its inequalities
and structures of domination. Humanism, like modern political thought
generally, thus simultaneously constructs and reflects the dialectic of
emancipation and domination so central to modernity itself.